How Much Does an Accessibility Audit Cost in the UK?
An accessibility audit in the UK costs anything from free to over £5,000 for a single website. The price depends on one thing more than any other: how much of the audit is done by a person using your site by hand, and how much is done by software. This guide sets out what each kind of audit costs, what you get for the money, and how to decide which one you need.
The short answer
- Automated audit: from free to a few pounds per page. Our Accessibility Audit costs £2.49 and checks the page against WCAG 2.2 Level A and AA as your visitors see it, plus two more pages of your site.
- Informal manual review: roughly £350 to £900, usually a single page or a short summary of issues.
- Full manual WCAG 2.2 AA audit: roughly £1,500 to £5,000 or more, with a detailed report, screen reader testing and a pass or fail result for each criterion.
The figures for manual audits come from UK providers' own published prices at the time of writing (October 2026). Prices change, so always confirm with the provider.
What UK providers charge
A few UK providers publish their prices, which gives a useful picture of the market:
- Jim Byrne Accessibility Testing lists an informal audit at £600 to £900 for a standard website, a full WCAG 2.2 audit from £2,500 (in the region of £2,500 to £4,000), £500 more when disabled colleagues test the site, and live on-site audits with training from £4,500.
- Accessimo, a UK manual audit provider, lists a single page at £350, three pages at £1,350 and a full audit at £1,500. Its own guide puts UK audits at around £350 to £5,000 or more for a single site.
- The same Accessimo guide reports AbilityNet's Digital Accessibility Review at £4,950 plus VAT, covering the home page, navigation, header and footer and about ten components, and Damteq from around £1,500 plus VAT.
These are list prices for one website. A large site, an online shop with a checkout, or an app on top of a website will cost more.
Why the prices are so different
1. How much is tested by hand
WCAG 2.2 has 55 success criteria at Level A and AA. Software can test many of them reliably: missing image text, form fields without labels, colour contrast, keyboard traps, focus you cannot see, pages that scroll sideways on a phone. Some it can never judge, such as whether image text actually describes the image, or whether an error message is clear. Those need a person. The more criteria a person checks by hand, with a keyboard and a screen reader, the higher the price.
2. How much of the site is covered
A home page review is the cheapest. A full audit of the journeys people actually take, such as searching, signing up, booking or paying, takes far longer. Most quotes are based on a sample of page templates rather than every page, because pages built from the same template usually share the same problems.
3. Who does the testing
Some providers include disabled testers who use assistive technology every day. That adds cost and adds real value: they find problems a sighted tester using a screen reader for the day can miss.
4. What you get at the end
A short email of issues costs less than a formal report with screenshots, code examples, a pass or fail table for every criterion, a re-test after fixes, or an accessibility conformance report (sometimes called a VPAT) for procurement.
Which one do you need?
- You want to know where you stand: start with an automated audit. It is cheap enough to run on every important page, and it tells you which criteria need a person to check.
- You are fixing a site: run an automated audit after each round of fixes. It shows straight away whether a change worked.
- You need to prove conformance: a public sector body publishing an accessibility statement, or a supplier answering a tender, needs a manual audit by a specialist as well. No automated tool can show full WCAG conformance on its own, because some criteria need human judgement.
The two work together. Fixing what an automated audit finds first means a manual auditor spends their (paid) time on the problems only a person can find, rather than on missing labels and low contrast.
What our audit costs and covers
Our Accessibility Audit costs £2.49 per audit. It loads the page in Chrome after its scripts have run, checks it against WCAG 2.2 Level A and AA, and checks two more pages of your site for consistent navigation and help. Every one of the 55 Level A and AA criteria is listed in the report: those it tested, those with problems, and those that need a person to check. You can see a full example in our example accessibility report.
Related questions
- How much does a WCAG audit cost?
- Is WCAG a legal requirement in the UK?
- Can you be sued in the UK for your website not being accessible?
Sources
- Jim Byrne Accessibility: WCAG testing and auditing prices
- Accessimo: What a WCAG audit costs in the UK (updated September 2026)
- W3C: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2
Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest way to check my website for accessibility?
An automated audit is the cheapest. Free browser tools exist, and our Accessibility Audit costs £2.49: it loads the page in Chrome after its scripts run, checks it against WCAG 2.2 Level A and AA, checks two more pages of your site, and lists which of the 55 criteria need a person to check. It is cheap enough to run on every important page and after every round of fixes.
Why does a manual accessibility audit cost so much more?
Because a person tests the site by hand with a keyboard and a screen reader, and judges the criteria software cannot, such as whether image descriptions are accurate or error messages are clear. That takes skilled time per page and per journey. Providers that include disabled testers, a detailed report with code examples, a re-test or a conformance report for procurement charge more again.
Do I need a manual audit or is an automated one enough?
An automated audit is enough to find and fix a large share of problems and to check your fixes. If you need to show full conformance, for example as a public sector body publishing an accessibility statement or a supplier answering a tender, you also need a manual audit, because some WCAG criteria can only be judged by a person. Doing the automated audit first makes the manual one cheaper and more useful.